Sox finish off fish
8th-inning comeback caps sweep
No matter what happens the rest of the way, the Red Sox will always have the Feast of the Fish.
The 8-1 Red Sox finally pushed away from the soft beginning to their season yesterday, with one more buttons-bursting, gluttonous “why not?” victory — staging an improbable rally for an 8-7 victory over the Rays.
The six-run rally in the eighth — all the runs came with two outs in a crescendo-building stretch of six straight hits, the last three against Rays closer Alex Colome — ended a ninegame season-opening sprint against the two woeful Florida teams, the Marlins and Rays.
After losing Game 1 in St.Petersburg to the Rays, who staged their own devastating six-run eighth that day, it’s as if the Red Sox awoke to the reality that they were standing over a barrel of helpless fish. They took aim, fired and never missed, even when they should have like in yesterday’s sloppy game.
“They’re fun to watch, they’re cool to watch,” said manager Alex Cora. “I’m sitting there like, ‘Wow, this is great,’ you know? It wasn’t a great game as a team, but it takes 27 outs to beat us, and they proved it.”
Sure the .500 Yankees arrive tomorrow with Giancarlo “5K” Stanton. They’re a threat.
They’re also charged with teaching a Red Sox team how to lose. That’s a lesson they stubbornly refuse to master.
“I don’t know if that group needs confidence down there,” said Cora. “I said it (Saturday), they’re playing, they don’t really know what’s going on. They’re just playing baseball and having fun with it. They prepare themselves, and they go out and — every team plays hard — but they’re just having fun right now.
“I don’t think they need more confidence. Coming out of spring training, we felt great about that group and they felt great as a group.”
Remember, the Red Sox came out of spring training with a 22-9 record, the best in baseball.
Before that first loss to the Rays, the Red Sox had won five in a row in spring training and 14 of their last 15 games.
That’s right: Since March 12, the Red Sox have played 24 games — 15 in spring training, nine in the regular season — and gone 22-2.
“We’ve been playing good baseball for a month now,” said Cora. “And I know spring training doesn’t count, I know the record doesn’t count, but we were playing good baseball. We were playing fast, we were catching the ball, and we were pitching. And regardless if it was Fort Myers or here or Tampa, it doesn’t matter. When you play good baseball, you have good results.
“Today, defensively, we were OK. We didn’t make some plays, but we made the ones we had to make and, overall, it was pretty good.”
The game was certainly there for the Rays to capture, but their roster is simply not up for the challenge against this Red Sox team with their deep bench and bullpen.
Still, they did everything they could to let the Rays win.
Eduardo Rodriguez was unable to continue the starters’ remarkable season-opening run (5-0, 1.28 ERA so far) in his first outing of the season. He got pushed out of the game in the fourth after allowing three runs and five hits.
Left fielder J.D. Martinez misplayed a ball off the Wall in the seventh inning, and after receiving his relay throw, shortstop Xander Bogaerts made a regrettable dish-off to a non-existent defender at third base. In chasing down the ball, Bogaerts slid into the Rays dugout and injured his left ankle, leaving the game.
The Red Sox were down 7-2 when the eighth began. Hanley Ramirez walked, then came two quick outs.
Cue the hit parade: First was Mitch Moreland’s RBI double, then a Eduardo Nunez single and Rafael Devers’ two-RBI double that caromed off the side of the garage door.
On came Colome, and Christian Vazquez greeted him with a RBI single, followed by Mookie Betts’ single to tie the game, and finally Andrew Benintendi’s game-winning RBI double.
The hitting, the confidence and, of course, the winning were contagious.
Said Betts: “Certain little things happen like that. We score a run here, we score an extra run there, it’s just like ‘Hey, we’re here, we might just as well be confident and go do it’ versus trying to just let it happen. Go make it happen.”